Taken for granted

What if you lost everything today? Literally everything - your house, your car, your family, your bedroom, everything. You would realize how much you take these things for granted. Would you think it was unfair that you had lost everything? Would you think that you deserved all of those things?

In the Bible it says; "For the wages of sin is death." Do you know what wages are? Wages are what you are given because you did something. When we work, we get paid. That money is our wages; it is what we get because we did the work.

The wages for sin is death. Because we sin, we get death. That is what we deserve. But if you keep reading that Bible verse it says, "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is Eternal Life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Do you know what a gift is? A gift is also something that we are given, but unlike wages, we don't have to do anything to get a gift. it is given to us for free.

Even though we get death because we sin, God gives us Eternal Life as a gift. We don't deserve it. He just gives it to us.

God gives us everything we have. He made us. He gave us life. A lot of us take life for granted. We think that we deserve it. We go to bed expecting to wake up the next morning. But really, we don't deserve life, we deserve death because we sin. Every day is not a given right. When we wake up every morning, we should thank God that He is letting us live another day. Instead of waking up and thinking "I deserved to wake up and live today" we need to think "Wow God. Thanks so much for letting me live another day."

It's so easy to take everything for granted. We think we deserve to eat every day. We think we deserve a bed, a bedroom, and a house. But we really only deserve death. 

Next time you hear someone say something mean to you, instead of thinking "I deserve to be treated better" think "I'm so glad I have ears that can hear." Next time someone cuts in front of you in traffic, instead of thinking "I deserve to be treated better when I'm driving" think "I'm so glad I have a car that can take me places." Next time your mom or dad makes a meal that you don't like, instead of thinking "I deserve to be able to eat food that I like," think "I'm so thankful that I have food that will nourish my body, and I'm so glad that I don't have to go hungry." When your mom or dad says no when you ask for some dessert, instead of thinking "I deserve dessert," think "I'm so happy my mom and dad are concerned with keeping me healthy."

If you don't take anything for granted, and you realize that we don't deserve anything that we have, it makes life look a lot different. You don't wish that you had the next best video game, you can be glad that you have any. You won't wish that you didn't have as much schoolwork, you can be thankful that there are people who care enough to give you a good education.

When we think of things that we are thankful for, usually things like my house and my family come to mind. What if we thought of more things than just those? How about the ability to see, hear, smell, touch, and taste? How about the fact that you can breathe? How about the fact that you can walk? How about the fact that your family has money to feed you?

It makes life look a lot different if we remember to thank God for EVERYTHING.